


Of Soldiers and Monsters

by mysterioustranger



Category: One Piece
Genre: Action/Adventure, Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Angst and Feels, Enemies to Lovers, Eventual Smut, Explicit Sexual Content, Found Family, Friendship, M/M, On-Again/Off-Again Relationship, POV Alternating, Pre-Canon, Sexual Inexperience, Sexual Tension, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-27
Updated: 2021-02-18
Packaged: 2021-03-07 15:55:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 14,392
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26680258
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mysterioustranger/pseuds/mysterioustranger
Summary: A gleefully destructive Marine officer and his ruthless, dogmatic Captain find themselves reluctantly drawn to each other in their common search for meaning.Chapter 3: Borsalino's interest in Sakazuki is a cocktail of lust, envy, amusement, and irritation at being required to actually work during his first mission at HQ.
Relationships: Akainu | Sakazuki & Monkey D. Garp, Akainu | Sakazuki/Kizaru | Borsalino, Aokiji | Kuzan & Kizaru | Borsalino
Comments: 23
Kudos: 36





	1. Prologue & Lazy Sunrise

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! This fic which is mostly about Borsalino and Sakazuki finding their motivations, becoming the antagonists we know and maybe love, and having a ton of UST and eventual kinky sex in the process.
> 
> \- Rating: M for dark themes and sexytimes scattered throughout. May go up. 
> 
> \- Content warning (applies to all chapters!) I often explore power dynamics in the naughty scenes, which translates into some **soft dom/sub, bondage, restraint and coercion kink, light sadism/masochism, weapon play** , and stuff like that. Kink is used more as a tool to explore the relationships and motivations, so it's present while not the central point of the sex scenes.
> 
> The general tone of the fic is more action/drama but on occasion it will go some dark places. I would like to warn in advance for **mental violence, memory loss, ptsd and unhealthy coping mechanisms**. There is one unrelated mention of sexual violence (implied in a character's background). Otherwise all the violence is canon-typical. 
> 
> \- Canon compliance: I tend to prefer my writing canon-compliant, but since we know so little about the main characters and this fic deals with their past as Marines and beyond, it could get Jossed literally any week. Sorry for that, I decided not to let the fear of diverging ruin the fun. (: A big shout out to the webmaster of thelibraryofohara.com for his excellent research and analysis, without the OP timeline it would’ve been impossible to write this.

**Prologue  
  
**

The pulse in the air has changed since Roger’s execution. Fuelled by superstition, an increasing uneasiness seems to plague their own ranks – even the most sceptical would admit that the sea itself seems angry. The cutting wind hits at white coats and the waves roar, as though even the Tarai current, usually loyal to the Marines, were conspiring to hinder the ship’s advance to their destination of Enies Lobby.

Vice Admiral Sakazuki stands at the front deck of his battleship, his massive form dressed in furious red and black. Determined to show he’s unfazed by the elements, he stares at the Judicial Island’s distant main gates as if he could secure his grip on them that way.

“Shit, we’re approaching that waterfall ring,” he hears a soldierling complain on deck.

“I know, right? It gets me every time.”

As Sakazuki turns around to shut down any further whining, the offending commenter has already regretted having said anything – that much is obvious in the white of his juvenile eyes and his caved-in chest, the hands spidering around the rifle he holds over a slouched shoulder. The Vice Admiral has a talent for glares, the kind that can reduce a full-grown man to a babbling mess in seconds, and the recruits he commands these days are not full-grown anything. He can practically _hear_ the officer complaining to his peers about what an asshole the Red Dog is; he’s well aware of the whispered nickname among his subordinates, and regards it with pride.

 _But if you are unhurt on our way back, I will be the one to thank,_ he thinks, and his jawline tightens.

In times like these, being loved or admired is useless. It is fear that gets things done.

The World Government understands this. The scholars of Ohara would too, by now, if they weren’t all dead. He is sure that his performance at that incident impressed the Goroseii Elders enough for them to tug at a few strings and set his battleship to sail more often. Strong leadership is scarce, and the demand is high: the tremor prompted by Gol D. Roger – no, _Gold_ Roger, by his controversial last words at Logue Town, seems to be anything but waning.

But every last one of Roger’s admirers with delusions of grandeur who have gathered in front of the Enies Lobby in protest – pirates, civilians, or self-proclaimed revolutionaries…, all of them will understand, too.

As he turns back around before staring down at the Judicial Island into immobility again, he catches a sideways glimpse of his… second-in-command, _supposedly_.

Borsalino has nothing resembling work ethics, but once prodded into movement, there is a curious first-line-of-fire enthusiasm about him. Right now, he’s standing next to a mast, listening to a soldierling reporting over the wind, his tall figure impeccably dressed in pinstriped grey for the occasion. From his position, you would think he were resting in the summer breeze; one hand buried in his pocket, another raised up to his eyes for a thorough inspection of his fingernails through amber-tinted sunglasses. The bastard looks bored out of his mind.

As if hearing his thoughts, Borsalino squints up and raises a palm to wave at him idly. 

Sakazuki finds himself replaying the image of those same long hands defiantly gripping the side of his neck, the tan fingers slipping into his mouth and disappearing in a flash when he tries to bite in. He grits his teeth at the unwelcome distraction. The spontaneous decision to vent some stress into each other before departing has caught both of them by surprise – _keeps_ catching them by surprise, too damn often and since too long ago.

It’s that grin of his, he realizes. That look Borsalino has _always_ had, as if nothing could ever rattle him. It’s insufferable, provoking to no end. _And yet_ …

One blink later, Borsalino has disappeared from his idling position in a grand, glimmering burst, materializing next to him a split second afterwards. Sakazuki glances over his shoulder at the recruit who was reporting for him. The kid has almost jumped out of his skin.

“The Marine standards have dropped,” he mutters through half-gritted teeth.

“Aah… Sakazuki, you were a child yourself _ooonce_ …” The way Borsalino draws his speech makes him sound slow, flippant. Sakazuki sees now that a cigarette hangs limply between his fingers, somehow unaffected by the stormy wind. A thin ember lights up at its end as he holds it up to his pressed lips and inhales slowly; his eyes wrinkle at the corners, fond, slightly mocking. “The Government officials are nervous, aren’t they…? No time for hand-picking, I suppose…”

“What are the reports?”

“Ooh, the company will be interesting… some known faces, sightings of Whitebeard’s allies, but the man himself and his crew appear to be missing… the young runaway Tyrant Kuma is there, some former underlings of Roger’s, too,” after saying this, he grimaces. He knows, and so does Sakazuki, that the opportunity to tie that many loose ends comes rarely –to not seize it would be unforgivable. Then, he adds sheepishly, “You know what I want all to myself, don’t _you_ …?”

Just after his question, the ship tilts to the side. Sakazuki hears the trotting of boots on wood behind him and avoids looking at the highly probably pathetic display of his soldiers on deck. He finds himself glancing at Borsalino’s profile again, barely stumbled on his feet, adjusting the sunglasses sitting on his hawk-beak nose. He looks slightly grieved when a trail of ash falls on the fold of his suit and flicks at it, a flash of light leaving it intact again, before his eyes settle on Sakazuki’s.

His brow knits. Of course, both of them were expecting the Vice Admiral to be concentrated on something else by now, relentlessly focused in his mission as he usually is.

“You’re _sta-ring_ … Why, have you missed me that much?” Borsalino will never pass up on the opportunity to tease a reaction out of him. Sakazuki scowls, refuses to take the bait; anything that he can say about their lack of contact the last two years can, and will, be stored and used against him like one of his glimmering bullets. “Or are you nervous, too…?”

“Nervous about pirates,” Sakazuki spits the words like the nonsense they are.

“That would be a scandal…”

But both of them find it increasingly more difficult to sneer at this situation. It’s not the pirates that are unsettling the World Government – it’s their _ideas_. And the man who got his just punishment two years ago in Logue Town, he had enough of those to fuel a damned revolution.

Enies Lobby has grown considerably in the horizon and clouds sail through the sky to gather around it. Many would say it looks like a bad omen, but even if there _were_ a destiny, and it _were_ against him, Sakazuki would bend it by force. His hatred for the unjust is so hard-wired, that facing any of those criminals will trigger the same response he felt when confronting his personal tormentors – the same tightening of the muscles, the same rush of heat as hot magma gathers from his chest into his hands and threatens to spill. And once he is there, there is no human or force of nature that can stop him.

Borsalino has turned his back to him. He has also put some cautious interest in this particular mission, but why, Sakazuki cannot tell. Maybe he grew bored of the old doctor’s research antics at Punk Hazard and desired the thrill of the battle again…, but he is unusually silent.

“You’re dying to go ahead,” the Vice Admiral says. His subordinate turns around, shrugging in mock modesty, grinning faintly. “Do it.”

Borsalino doesn’t need to answer. He looks up – spots the military telescope fixed to the top of the nearest mast and immediately disappears into thin air, condensing himself into a beam to bounce against the spyglass.

Sakazuki squints. He’s seen that power in action often enough to know that his subordinate could speed up and cover the rest of the distance between them and Enies Lobby almost invisibly, but he won’t – he _wants_ to be seen. And after watching countless enemies lose focus and rage in confusion when they try to slice into him, caught off guard by his _oh-so-airheaded_ spiel, the Vice Admiral has grown to tolerate the theatrics – mostly.

The first explosion thunders in the distance shortly after. A grimace tightens on Sakazuki’s lips. Perhaps he is the only Marine in the world taking this whole matter seriously.

But the fact is this madness needs to stop. The _how_ is irrelevant.

After all, it took only one man to start the revolution – it will only take another man to kill it.

* * *

**Chapter 1  
 _8 Years Before_**

It dawned late at Marineford: the rocky monoliths of the Red Line cast a permanent shadow on the half-moon-shaped island. Sitting beneath the training facilities on a dark, cloudless morning, Borsalino found himself noticing the chilly sea wind on his bare arms. It made him tug at his knitted hat constantly and think of the dawns on the other side of the Grand Line, the fiery red sunrays stabbing into a deep blue sky…, that was easily the only good thing the G-1 base had offered him. With odd exceptions, his work during the last two underwhelming years had consisted of patrolling and guarding royalty ships, and he had eventually given up prying his old retired Admiral of an instructor for more.

And exactly for this reason, he’d decided to assure himself a better start after his transfer and search for inspiration at the training facilities, no matter how more appetizing it seemed to finish his cigarette slowly and let the last remnants of sleepiness wear off into the air with its smoke. The training ground he found himself on, one among many at Marineford, had a traditional quality; the edged strip of porch he was sitting on was a rare speck of wood on the otherwise sterile stone fortress, the surrounding space equal concrete, bamboo and tightly cut grass.

He wasn’t alone. Hidden from view by the nearby corner of the building and his sitting angle, another man’s huffing and puffing provided a memorable background sound. Judging by the uninterrupted streak of time that guy had been running around, his reserves were infinite. When Borsalino heard him drop into push-ups, he had to grimace slightly – the day hadn’t even begun and he already wanted to tell the guy to chill. Head propped on a long hand, he tilted forward to try and shift the over-motivated officer into view: maybe Borsalino would consider him redeemed if the way he looked matched his level of training…

…but as the figure came into view – all broad shoulders and defined muscles, _of course_ , and a square, tight jawline, and ruthless eyes fixed on the space between his hands, Borsalino flinched his head back.

_Oh. It’s Sakazuki._

Although he had barely arched his eyebrows, he realized he had forgotten his cigarette when the flame prickled him between the fingers. He put it down in a frenzy.

“Borsalino,” A female voice behind him drew his attention. He had not really acknowledged the clack of her shoes approaching on the porch. “Are you getting along well?”

“Oh… Commander Tsuru,” he rose to his feet immediately, burying his big hands in the pockets of his trousers and bowing his head slightly to address the shorter woman. The reglementary white coat of higher-ranking Marines looked big on her frame; he could see the strict part of her dark, greying hair, a ponytail scratching the coat’s shoulders. “Good, I suppose…? I have not tried for very long…”

She did not return his smile.

“It’s good to see you here early. It will do you good to push yourself.”

He let out a melodic ‘ _hmmmmm’_ – in truth, he had kept showing up late to training at the G-1, and the resulting ungodly number of disciplinary hours had shaped his schedule to be erratic. He would now often open his eyes in the dark and be unable to close them again.

“I know what you mean… I must look _terribly_ lazy to you.”

Sakazuki huffed again, accidentally drawing his attention, and the Commander followed suit.

“I know underchallenged when I see it. It happens to women recruits often – a different temperament is mistaken for weakness,” she said, and her words pulled his chin up. He did exceed at fighting when his paths crossed with usual New World rookies who thought a Devil’s Fruit was a suitable substitute for fighting skills or a personality, but that hadn’t been very often. “Your former mentor said that your Observer’s haki is active, even advanced, but you need to go further than that. That you need a focus. A motivation.”

 _Of course_ , he thought. That’s what everyone always said, all the little dreamers. But he still had no glowing beacon shining at the end of his journey, hadn’t had one for some time. There was definitely no thought in the last two years that could have made him push himself as hard as—

_Oh._

“Why… does this have anything to do with Sakazuki over there…?”

“I see you know him. It’s Captain Sakazuki now,” the Commander smiled faintly. “You will be serving under him.”

Tsuru’s choice of words was enough to have Borsalino’s eyes lingering on the other man’s shirtless torso for just a second too long. When he stood up, the black fabric of his pants clung to the sweat gathered about his muscles, so stiff and reddened they seemed to tug at the seams…, but the sight of his fists came not without a small fit of phantom pain on Borsalino’s chest.

As thrilling as it had been, the aftermath of their short collaboration before joining the Marines had taken its share of weeks to heal.

Sakazuki was apparently done, as he proceeded to gather his clothes he’d discarded over a nearby wooden railing. The face-off was now unavoidable, and Borsalino decided to catch his attention first by saluting limply. When Sakazuki’s eyes met his, they narrowed to slits.

 _You,_ he mouthed.

“Ah… How are _yo-ou_?” Borsalino beamed. He swayed slightly on his long legs and did his best to maintain eye contact, his face the best impression of giddy calmness he could muster. “It’s been a long time…”

Sakazuki twisted his mouth sourly. He ran a hand across his sweat-drenched hair and looked past him to address Commander Tsuru instead.

“What’s he doing here?”

“As charming as ever, Captain,” she remarked. At her direct tone, Sakazuki threw his head back slightly and crossed his arms, hermetical. “Borsalino was transferred here from the G-1. You were focusing on observer’s haki lately, yes? Well – here is some inspiration for you, Captain,” she then nodded over at Borsalino. “Your styles are complimentary. It will do you good to learn from each other.”

Leaving no space for the mandatory cutting reply, she strolled away.

Borsalino felt the urge to taunt the other man a bit, but decided to swallow it; trying to glare back at Sakazuki was like staring a gargoyle off, and his body was still shaken by the memories of what it’d been put through. The other man spoke only after a string of very long seconds.

“Did you ever tell anyone?”

“Tell anyone?” Borsalino scratched the backside of his head over his woollen hat. “That would… not be very smart of me, would it…?”

“No,” had he not known better, the momentary tightness in the other man’s expression could have been mistaken for a smile. Sakazuki paused and faced down in thought, then grimly met his eye again only halfway up. “Listen. All is different now than when we met. I have things to lose. Are you looking for trouble?”

“ _Wha-aat_ …?” It took a few seconds to realize what he was implying: he felt threatened by that what he knew. He was the only one – well, he and the CP agent responsible for the cover-up, that was – who knew exactly what they had done right before joining the Marines… but the idea of him being dangerous to Sakazuki was absurd, and he almost felt like laughing in relief. “Ah… you can unclench. I’m not here to bother _yo-ou._ I hated the G-1, that’s why I came.”

The distant sounds of a beginning morning routine surrounded them like quiet rain. Recruits chatting, the clatter of weapons, steps on wood. Sakazuki seemed to consider and then breath out visibly, finally draping his coat about his shoulders and sinking his Marine’s cap on his head.

“Right. Let it stay like that,” he muttered. “So this means you want me to train you.”

Borsalino’s eyebrows squished together.

“Ahh… I am _almost sure_ that’s not what Tsuru said…,” this time, sarcasm did trickle into his tone, enough to tighten away any slight softening of Sakazuki’s features.

“Good, because it’s not my job. There’s always someone willing to spar in the evenings if you’re not on duty. I have much more important stuff to do.”

When the Captain walked away, Borsalino watched the ideogram of ‘justice’ at his back. He reached tentatively for the tobacco pouch in his back pocket. The Sakazuki whom he’d parted with so many months ago had staggered, had been covered in dirt and blood. The few images that remained of those days – the ones he retained, that had not been washed away by the shock – still assaulted him in his dreams sometimes.

(The weight of a vial full of poison in his pocket… a child laughing… a doll’s head charred on the stone streets… the dryness of his throat as he blurted out the words, ‘I can’t let you do that.’)

‘Justice’…

(Sakazuki’s fists raining against his chest, the ground prickling under him… a chorus of screams waning into silence… gilded rings glistening under the sun on a man’s rough, massive hands, stained with dark red.)

* * *

Nearing midday, a tyrannical sun reigned over the island. The light rays prickled Borsalino’s arms and shoulders; the sleeveless Marine uniform was to thank for that. He’d been assigned to guarding duty at one of the many posts scattered outside of the fortress – t _his is my life now_ , he’d thought resignedly, and spent a bunch of hours watching over a world tinted amber-orange by his sunglasses.

To be fair, he and his assigned companion, a kid not older than twenty, did have a nice view of the Grand Line glittering. Under the stone wall where they stood, some children were playing or tormenting each other; the clashing of makeshift swords had intensified during the last minutes, and as he’d held back the last yawn pooling in his throat, he saw a scrawny, blonde child fall on his fours and scratch his palms and knees, however still grinning when he looked up.

“Are these kids even allowed to play here, so close to headquarters…?” Borsalino thought aloud. He faced the other Marine, who did not seem more entertained by the duty as he was. He wore round sunglasses himself, and from his profile, his eyes looked like they still hadn’t blinked the last specks of sleep away.

“Uh… That’s Admiral Sengoku’s kid. I guess he can do whatever,” the guy replied. He then leant over the wall and squinted at the approaching ships in the distance. The wind almost immediately messed up his black curls, and his air of seriousness became a bit endearing. “New around here?”

“Mm-hm…” Borsalino leant over the stones too, warm and ridged to the touch. “ _We-ell_ … I have been in the Marines for two years, but not long here in Marineford.”

“Two years,” the other officer nodded his quiet approval. “That’s already more than--”

His words were cut short when a makeshift sword came flying in his direction. They heard a dull sound, like something thumping against glass, and Borsalino raised his eyes immediately. The younger man had reached up for the toy… but the colour and shape of his hand were now all wrong. Borsalino realized one second later that he was looking at a block of ice frosting the wood in place.

“Hey, thanks, Kuzan!” Sengoku’s kid grinned and waved from under the wall, his eyes obscured by thick golden locks. When the other officer threw him the toy back, the kid trotted away on legs as steady as a newborn fawn.

“Oo-oh… you’re a Logia user!” Borsalino exclaimed, propping his head on his palm. “How interesting! Can you do that again?”

The officer shrugged modestly and chuckled. 

“ _Arara_ …, er, it’s not that impressive. Just practice.”

“Practice…? So you have had it for long, huh…?” He hung his reglementary rifle over a shoulder and leaned over to examine that Kuzan’s hand, the ice withdrawing with a crackle. “Doesn’t it feel strange?”

“Just at the beginning,” Kuzan cleared his throat, a bit of his reserved coolness melting. “It was a bit… you could say, uh, overwhelming. But you grow into it eventually. Or more like… merge with it.”

“Merge with it, huh?”

Borsalino’s thoughts had to float back to his childhood at the other side of the Red Line. Devil’s Fruits had once been the most interesting thing in the world, as he was a little bookish boy living in the Science Division headquarters. He had often examined the old doctor’s research – he still had proof of that, tucked away where nobody could find it – and, under the tender light of an oil lamp, devoured every story and account he could find about the legendary Logia users, adventurers, soldiers, pirates and monsters who wore elements like a hidden layer of skin…

…but he didn’t mention any of this, instead keeping the childish glow from shining through his words.

“I bet you have some awesome techniques,” he stated.

Kuzan smiled faintly, humbly. “Show you anytime.” 

The approaching ships had docked, the World Government’s flag on their sails. A few Marine ships had come too, most notoriously one decorated with a dog’s head at the front. They observed curiously as a small party of Marines made their way to the main stairway. Vice Admiral Garp, the Hero of the Marines, towered unmistakably over everyone else, his bark of a laughter audible in the distance if one paid enough attention.

Along him walked a few individuals dressed in black. Neither looks or disposition matched those of Marines; as they got closer, Borsalino saw that some of them were masked.

“Cipher Pol, you think?” Kuzan asked, as if reading his thoughts.

“Ah… not very good Cipher Pol if you can tell, are they…?”

“Huh... Wonder why they'd show up here instead of going up to Mary Geoise.”

Borsalino nodded slowly. He had the fleeting suspicion that he would see Sakazuki going to greet the Vice Admiral Garp, and sure enough, he stepped up to the other side of the wall to catch a glimpse of the fortress’ forefront and recognized the Captain among the saluting officers.

“Ahh… there is he,” he thought aloud. “A very important person, Sakazuki… he made sure I knew.”

“Oh. I know. He takes himself too seriously, but he's okay,” He paused and pressed his lips slightly. “He’d probably get pranked left and right if he hadn’t… uh, caved some guy’s face in when he tried to.”

Borsalino peeled his look away from the main gateways and raised his eyebrows at Kuzan, half expecting a smile to follow suit. But remembering Sakazuki’s overzealous look on that morning, his eyes black like two oil stains and overflowing with anger… he understood, even before it was clear, that the other officer was not joking.

“Huh… did you know him?”

“No, I just heard about it. The guy was transferred somewhere else.”

Borsalino tilted his head in feigned worry. He did not want to pry for too much more information, lest he end up accidentally revealing their connection. But it was not a stretch to assume that somebody not hand-picked by the World Government would have been dismissed after something like what Kuzan had just described.

But he felt lucky they hadn’t. Under Sakazuki’s over-controlled exterior, there was something else – something fiery. It blazed in his eyes, and it slipped through the cracks of his discipline. And although that intensity had hurt when he fell victim to it, the thrill that came with it had never really faded.

That something, he would gladly see it again…

‘Justice’ waved in the wind behind the officer’s coats, was engraved on the very building where they’d vowed to serve the Marine and the Government.

“Hmm… I’ll be careful… that is sure scary.”

 _And interesting,_ he kept the thought to himself. Uncanny how often the two went hand in hand.


	2. Blue and Grey

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Meet Sakazuki, a man between missions. By joining the Marines, he’d wanted to close the curtain on his past, but the ghosts he’d thought put to rest seem to be clawing their way back to him.

Retracing his way up to the Headquarters, Sakazuki felt as though somebody were pointing and holding a cold finger over the back of his neck, millimetres short of pressing. He felt _watched_. However, looking uncomfortable was forbidden; he held a stern command over his position, his chin high, back straight. That was the soldier he wanted Vice Admiral Monkey D. Garp to see.

 _Not that he’s looking,_ he griped to himself. Certainly not judging by the way the Hero of the Marines’ laughter echoed through the outer stone walls of Marineford as he pushed his gigantic form up the stairway three or four steps at a time. Whether cadets or secret service officers, he regarded everyone with the same familiarity. He was the plain image of not giving a damn.

“Sakazuki!” The Vice Admiral grinned openly upon seeing him salute. A palm, big like a claw, rained down between Sakazuki’s shoulders and knocked the breath out of him. “I’m glad to see you again!”

“Helloviceadmiral,” Sakazuki coughed out.

“We need to get some planning out of the way with the CP2 here,” Garp said, pointing a thumb over his shoulder without looking back. Sakazuki did glance at the agents, at their masks shaped like nondescript faces. He couldn’t help but wonder if there was a real need to conceal their identities or if the precaution was more a statement of power; if the Headquarters’ security was up to their standards, it certainly didn’t show.

 _It’s not your place to challenge them,_ he told himself – bowed his head noncommittally and caught up with Garp.

“Sengoku is expecting us already… but hear me out first,” the Vice Admiral chattered as they entered the palace-sized headquarters and navigated sunlit corridors. “Ever heard about a guy named Don Chinjao of the Chinjao family? _Boy_ do I have a story for you…”

As the anecdote moved forward, tears of laughter formed in the corners of his eyes. The roughness of his features had sharpened a little and grey had started to fleck his temples, but his attitude made him easily ten years younger. Incidentally, it also relegated Sakazuki to a bunch of monosyllabic replies – but he didn’t think his mentor minded much. The man always spoke _in general_ , to the great audience of the world.

Sakazuki found Admiral Sengoku’s solemnity as he guarded the doorstep to his office far more relatable. Hands behind his back, suited up in formal black the same shade as his moustache, when he laid eyes upon them he looked like he’d expected perfect order and had received, well, Garp.

“You are late,” he said simply.

“ _Bwahahahah!_ And you look like someone pissed on your breakfast!” Garp flashed an open grin at his unimpressed supervisor. “The CP2 over here have some intel to share. I’ll have Bogart and Sakazuki over with us too, if you don’t mind?”

Sakazuki swallowed in discomfort as the narrow, bespectacled eyes turned to him. Pondering, maybe slightly annoyed; it was hard to tell. Often, Admiral Sengoku would see him training and drop a remark that seemed biting, only to follow it with a smile and a nod of acknowledgement. After tracing his moustache idly with a gloved hand, Sengoku looked back at Garp and said,

“No.”

“What?” The Vice Admiral’s grin tightened into a grimace. “Why the hell not?”

“The business we have is more serious than expected! It concerns only the higher ranks,” Sengoku exclaimed, then folded his arms and lowered his head in Sakazuki’s direction. “It’s nothing personal. Fleet Admiral Kong and the people above him would not be happy.”

“Concerns only the higher— but that goat of yours is not going anywhere, is she? Did she ever get that Admiral’s seat offered too?” the Vice Admiral’s public disagreement with his superior was uncomfortable; Sakazuki guessed that the CP2 were quietly exchanging looks now. But they all, including Garp, had to know Sengoku would not budge. “Oh, _okay_. Sakazuki, would you go to my office and I will give you the watered-down version of something the World Government doesn’t want you to know. And have a look at the updated bounties! There should be a bunch of copies there.”

“Yes, sir,” Captain Sakazuki replied dutifully, and allowed himself to scowl at the tallest Cipher Pol officer. The eyes behind the mask caught him before darting away, so cold and pale as to suggest the metallic sky on a rainy day.

-

Only on the way to Garp’s office did he realise that he’d clenched his jaw so tight his molars hurt.

For the second time that day, his last fiasco of a venture in the North Blue had resurfaced in his mind. Thoughts circled him like vultures over potential prey.

It had been Borsalino at first. Why that obtuse, disorganized, damned riddle of a man would ever want to see him again, let alone grin as though nothing had ever strained them, was a mystery. And now, the Cipher Pol, who’d been directly responsible for offering the pair to join the Marines – Sakazuki suspected that the alternative would’ve been Impel Down, seeing as they’d accidentally meddled with a government operation – were sniffing about the headquarters.

Probably unrelated, but unnerving all the same.

 _Was the undercover agent we met at the Harrier’s lair a CP2?,_ he’d caught himself wondering, but quickly shot down the thought. The agent he’d met was higher-ranked, an odd woman called Kumadori. He remembered her clearly: suited up like a businessman, her face a shock of white makeup framed by a heavy, pink mane of hair. It was telling that a Government-sponsored assassin could blend so well into the string of bacchanals pirates called a life, feasting with them, drinking their wine, laughing her hyena’s pitch as she watched them chop each other up for fun and humiliate the servants they’d ripped from their pillaged homes.

Sakazuki did wonder how his younger self had resisted blowing the whole thing to shreds the moment he’d laid eyes on it. He’d thought himself a hunter, patient and cold and even-headed. Only when the situation had screwed itself up immensely had he discovered that he, in fact, was exactly zero of those things.

He’d had _one_ job. One mission burned in his mind since his earliest days. One mission failed.

 _Enough._ Sakazuki slammed the door of Garp’s office behind him and fixed his eyes on the floor. _No more._

The heated voices debating next door pulled him back to the present, and he cursed that damned Observer’s haki for remaining dormant. The room made a spacious, tidy impression; not the best match for its host, probably a testament to the time the Hero of the Marines had _not_ spent there lately. As he pulled a chair and solemnly sunk next to the desk, Sakazuki noticed a wooden paperweight shaped like a toy dog and holding a few sheets in place. He poked its cross-eyed head with a finger, raised an eyebrow as he watched it wiggle from side to side. Then, he ran his hand over the paperwork to splay it over the desk.

The World Government went out of their way to choose the least flattering pictures for their bounty posters, but the pirates certainly didn’t help. That scruffy rookie for example, Gol D. Roger, had grown a full villainous moustache since the start of his Grand Line voyage. There were the former Rocks members, the stuff of children’s nightmares, like Edward Newgate and Charlotte Linlin and the Golden Lion Shiki, who now were trying to recruit – all of them the scum of the earth no matter how many lowlifes tripped over themselves to join their crews. One Captain Gecko Moria of the Gecko pirates _actually_ looked like a monster. Very appropriate.

(…leafing through bounty posters always brought memories too, but from way, way back; the orphanage and its smell of incense, the same song always playing on a gramophone over and over until it was so worn and off-key that the melody was unrecognizable, the view of the Swallows’ Peak from the one window, always locked; and forced hours staring at similar bounty posters, being taught to hate them, being forced to memorize those grins and glares with all the fervour he could gather and accept, and know, that one day it would be his call to wipe them from existence even if it costed his own life…)

His head jerked up at the startling booming sound, like a cannonball wrecking a wall. Instinctively he clasped a hand around the weapons at his belt, thinking that Marineford may be under attack until he remembered that Vice Admiral Garp was back, and the most likely cause for any destruction. Sakazuki’s shoulders relaxed.

The door clicked just seconds later and the Hero of the Marines waltzed into his office in a cloud of plaster and stone dust.

“ _Garp_ , you idiot,” Sengoku’s voice chased after him, “You are not getting away with just paying for the repair out of your pocket this time. You will be rebuilding this. And I mean. You. Personally! _Today_!”

“Trying to reason with the Government is impossible,” his supervisor made no attempts to whisper before shutting the door behind his back and walking briskly to his chair. He reached for a drawer to produce a package of rice cakes and popped a few into his mouth.

“…should I ask?”

“We’ll say our mission goes like this,” Garp answered through a mouthful of cake, “A small crew of pirates wants to pay their offerings to a dangerous family with contacts in the Underworld. The Cipher Pol happen to find out the location and time of the meeting and decide we should take over. You know, retrieve the treasure, devil’s fruits and all, and arrest the small guys. Perfect set up, huh?”

Sakazuki blinked and nodded.

“But we are not allowed to touch the criminal family!” Garp rose to his feet and lunged forward, slamming a palm on the stack of paper. “In fact, we have direct orders to time our raid so that we don’t meet them at all. Does that make any sense to you?!”

A few seconds passed before Sakazuki realised that an answer was expected from him. Crossing his arms, he diverted his look to the cartography of the Red Line hanging on a wall.

“No,” he held his head low. “I would know.”

“Bringing you here is the best they have done in the last ten years. Talk about broken clocks…”

“I wouldn’t say that,” Sakazuki swallowed the dry lump in his throat. “I owe the World Government…”

But his sentence was cut short when Garp hurled the dog-shaped paperweight at him, just barely missing a cheekbone. He almost did not flinch and felt a _little_ proud at the fact.

“You don’t owe them _shit_ , young man. Anybody who has the guts to go and hunt down the bastard who’d turned his village into a hellhole while the Cipher Pol sits and watches…! They respected that. And it was all you.”

Sakazuki would have argued they’d change their minds if they knew the whole story. If the civilian deaths had not all been framed on the pirates, if Kumadori hadn’t had her own mistakes to cover and Borsalino hadn’t stayed silent.

“Still hung up on the defeat, huh?” Garp barked at his thoughtfulness. “You hothead! You’re a Marine now. The past is in the past.”

“Yes, sir,” Finding it hard to squeeze the words out while maintaining eye contact, he tapped with his fingers on the bounty posters. Were he alone, he’d have turned them around. “It’s just hard to know where to start again.”

“Doesn’t matter much if we’re not chasing real pirates,” When he noticed Sakazuki’s puzzled look, Garp waved his last sentence away and snatched himself another rice cake. “Ah! Forget it. We’ll do what they want. By the way, the Vice-Admiral responsible for the G-8 is retiring soon and I have been offered to take over. They probably can’t wait to get rid of me around here again,” he nodded to himself. “If you’re far along enough and you want to, you can come with me!”

“Yes!” Sakazuki raised his eyebrows in surprise, injecting his reply with more enthusiasm that he’d intended. “I mean. Of course.”

“And now,” Garp planted the side of his face on a hand and pulling a map flat on the desk, “Help me figure this one out, son.”

* * *

Shaped like a lotus flower, the window opened into a purpling sky where orange and pink clouds fumed. In the training grounds beneath, a couple of cadets and lower-ranked officers had been testing their strengths well into the evening, their long shadows a play on the gravel.

He’d discarded the idea of joining; the day’s tension was heavy on his shoulders, and the weight on his eyelids put a cap to his already lacking lust for socialization. Besides, there was one-hundred-percent too much Borsalino down there for his mood.

Then there was Monkey D. Garp. Their conversation had left a sense of vertigo in him.

He’d mentally replayed the words _you can come with me_ so many times that his temples hurt – being a second-in-command to the Hero of the Marines, the man who had embodied his ideals long before the thought of joining the Navy ever crossed his mind, was the greatest honour he could fathom. But being close to him meant seeing the man as…, well, a man, not anymore an icon. Hearing him badmouth the World Government and question an Admiral’s decision to cooperate with their direct orders made uneasiness flutter across him, question if the world where they lived was more grey than blue.

“Is Garp already away?” Commander Tsuru, her voice husky after a full day of work, joined him next to the window with her hands clasped around a cup of tea.

Sakazuki nodded. He left out the part where the Vice Admiral had seemed to start suppressing yawns at the strategical planning and called the briefing off early. She probably suspected it, but luckily the sound of oak clashing against oak downstairs drew her attention before she could ask.

Borsalino was confronting Momonga. The latter was fast and relentless with his training sword, leaving no space to breath between blows; but Borsalino dodged every attempt swiftly, well balanced and agile on his feet like an island monkey. Then at some point he got bored, shot his leg up, and kicked the cap off Momonga’s head.

_Prick._

He’d gotten better. His face was affable and calm; it was the glinting eyes that gave away the cleverness underneath. A bit too much showing off and nonsense, as always. But he was better.

“Very good, your friend,” Tsuru said. Paused to sip on her tea. “But I see what his instructor in the G-1 meant. All play and no work can be trouble.”

Sakazuki watched as his former cohort plopped himself on the floor to rest and barely suppressed a grin, the kind that would make anybody want to choke him. Sakazuki remembered thinking that that smile had surely disarmed a lot of people. He reserved a special kind of caution for those who could charm their way into anything; who could make you forget they did.

“He’s arrogant,” he replied finally. “And not my friend.”

Tsuru briefly looked as though she may reference black kettles and pots, but she pressed the remark behind her lips and spoke patiently instead.

“You don’t need to like all your soldiers, but leave the hard feelings out of the battlefield. Or are you a one-man army?”

“No,” A pause. _Not yet._

“I didn’t think so,” to his surprise, when he side-glanced at her, she was smiling. Her voice could be harsh, but her eyes glinted with will to see good in everything; she never passed up an opportunity to straighten those little things she observed. And she observed a lot, when it came to him.

He didn’t like it, but she was right. It was not that he needed to like his men; only trust was necessary. _So put on your big boy pants and be the more mature one._

He would put that ghost to rest once and for all.

* * *

 _Five more minutes._ _Five more and that’s it._

…that, he had told himself a few times already. But he clung to the vague hope that Borsalino would show up during the _next_ five minutes, thereby not rendering the entire wait useless.

It made him angry– irrationally, of course, because his subordinate did not know they were meeting. But whether intentional or not, the other man’s failure to show up was pure provocation; an affront to his pride, a snub to the time he’d generously chosen to spend there instead of meditating, training, sleeping, or busy with all-around less Borsalino-related matters.

The main entrance to the housing facilities consisted of a wooden veranda, which tonight remained open to the dusk. Sakazuki paced furiously on the polished oak floor, in and out of a peripheral glow of light coming from inside. He’d had to withstand the raised eyebrows of a few young cadets and officers he knew by name as they scurried around; all throwing him glances that ranged from curious to scared, most smelling of stale beer, none daring to drop a word of chatter. The way it was intended – he certainly wasn’t in Marineford to make friends.

Footsteps on gravel again. He squinted into the darkness to make out a tall figure he knew too well discarding itself from a group of officers who were rounding the night shift. When he emerged from the dark, Borsalino’s layman’s clothes jarred him; a burst of yellow pinstripe, tight white trousers hugging his long, straight legs, a plump fiddler’s cap sitting on his short hair and a bunch of bananas hanging from a long finger.

“Hey, _hellooo_ ,” he said giddily. He didn’t seem surprised to see him, instead wearing his expression of standard amusement at everything. Sakazuki glared at the fruits; their absurdity against the seriousness of the conversation ahead threw him off. “Oh, don’t worry about these. I didn’t steal them. I need to get a _lo-ot_ of energy back in here after training,” Borsalino ran a hand over his abdomen to straighten his shirt. “Do you want some?”

Sakazuki blinked. “Some what?”

“Umm… bananas, I think?” Borsalino paused; when he tilted his head to one side, his mischievous smile caught a bit more glow than darkness. “Unless there’s _any-thing_ you’d rather discuss upstairs…”

“It’s fine here,” Sakazuki cleared his throat and breathed in, and the words he had gone through in his mind stammered out as though he were dictating a telegram. “I saw you training. You’ve improved. I’d like you to come to the Red Line on your first mission for the Headquarters tomorrow. I expect the best, show up in time, no playfighting.”

“Mmmm… well…” as he’d spoken, Borsalino had manoeuvred with the fruits and his tobacco pouch to produce a rolled cigarette. Its tip lighted orange in the darkness when he sucked in. “This is all very endearing.”

“I’m serious,” Sakazuki frowned, jerking his head back at the curl of smoke. “It’s not about me. Whether you think I deserve to be here or not, we work together now. We need trust.”

Was that what she had meant? Surely something similar.

It had sounded more eloquent in his head, though.

A long string of silent seconds passed and Borsalino evaluated him quietly. The cigarette hung limply from his lips and his head was slightly downturned, so that he had to look up at Sakazuki from over the rim of his sunglasses. The smile was still there, but by the time he spoke again, it had left his eyes.

“Has it _ev-eeer_ really mattered what I thought, Sakazuki?”

Sakazuki gritted his teeth. “Address me properly. At least in public.”

“Why, do you forget _your_ rank when you are in public…?”

“You’re…” Heat coursed to Sakazuki’s face, the first sign that the insufferable man was hitting a nerve, that he should put some distance between them and look at the elephant in the room from afar. But the thought of Tsuru and Garp rooting for him to grow into his role weighed his feet in place. “Borsalino. I am not how I was. That person, who made those decisions, is dead.”

“Ooh,” the other man narrowed his eyes almost fondly. “How dramatic.”

“Hold on to your grudge at a dead man for all I care,” Sakazuki growled. “But this, this new life, don’t you think I’m not working hard at earning it.”

He realized too late that he’d thought the last sentence aloud, trying to convince himself rather than Borsalino. And the other man stayed fixated on Sakazuki, the look of somebody who knows he’s hearing words not meant for his ears, but who will not interrupt them because they are _sooo-interesting_.

“Weeell…, since I suspect this is as close to an apology as you will ever come, I will tell you that I…, _do_ think you make a splendid Marine,” he beamed, flicked his cigarette to the floor and stepped on it, and then exaggerated a yawn, fiddling with the bananas under Sakazuki’s steely eyes. “Aah… look at yooou, keeping me awake…! Distract me with something more interesting or don’t do it at _a-all_. _Captain_.”

“Good night,” Sakazuki spat, and made a mental note to shove Borsalino at the rear of the mission on the next day, as far away from him as humanely possible.

When he went inside, the night felt still.

Sakazuki had wanted to correct him. To say that he’d never apologized and had no intention of doing so. That he would have done it all over again, from the losing control of his fists when their plan had gone awry to the sloppy massacre at the Harrier’s lair, if it meant he’d come even close to scratching the surface of his goal.

He’d have said all that if he were sure.

He looked at the stars. Envied the fixed course and aim of his former self, how secure he had been of his conviction and of his mission. Felt stripped, almost crushed, under the weight of that immense blue and grey sky.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- I bet you remember that weird guy from the CP9 who was always going on about his mother -- yep, that's her in Sakazuki's Turbulent Past (tm). The wee son Kumadori is 8 years old during this story, setting it 27 to 26 years before the start of OP and about 4 years before Roger's execution!
> 
> \- The village of Tambora and Swallow's Peak are made up (with the later loosely based on the map of the North Blue). Also, the idea that they came from that island is a shout out to redpen1992's fic "Fire" (go read her fic series, it's amazing).
> 
> \- The Harrier Pirates are oc too, to avoid existing pirates being harmed in the making of this fic.
> 
> Thanks for reading!


	3. Act First, Ask Later

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Borsalino's interest in Sakazuki is a cocktail of lust, envy, amusement, and irritation at being required to actually work during his first mission at HQ. 
> 
> (Keep in mind that there's a general content warning for the whole fic at the beginning of Chapter 1!)

Borsalino was still half-smiling as he trotted the stairs up to his little room, the hurricane of activity around him settling down for the first time in the day. He slid out of his shirt, hung it carefully, and sat down at the small, old desk, swinging on the back legs of his chair. He filled his empty stomach with bananas and a warm beer he’d snuck up in his back pocket and finally dropped down on his bed.

His neighbour’s snoring pierced through the paper-thin walls. No place was perfect. At least he didn’t have to share a room, to spend days looking over his shoulder and watching his colleagues’ piles of trash grow by the hour. Now it was only _his_ trash he needed to worry about. 

He had no real attachment to places. The faint glow of an oil lamp, scarce food, and as much reading material as he could find to fight his restlessness had been the constants in the nights of the last decade, since he’d left his mentor’s care in a fit of quiet rebellion - but the beds were always changing, so did the company. Light and words were enough to give this particular room the glow of safety. However, it hadn’t always been that easy. 

_Hell,_ _compared to that hole in Tambora, even the G-1 was a palace._

Before joining the Marines, the improvised residence he’d found coming back to his natal island had been the abandoned Swallows Nest, an orphanage where at least none of the trigger-happy North Blue captains and crimelords he'd managed to anger would come looking for him. The molding, humid barrack in the woods had had little to do with his first memories of music and odd religious talk in the candlelight - but its problems had been largely fixed by a bunch of isolating barricades and stolen provisions.

And there, of all places, three years ago, Sakazuki had crossed his path. Borsalino smiled to himself in the dark.

Sakazuki… What a man. How strange that they both had led a life shitty enough to end up alone, back where they had started. He’d always looked as though he’d doubled shifts at whatever job of the week he had in the slums of the nearbiest town. For some puzzling reason, Sakazuki had kept coming to Borsalino’s hideaway after finding him there, bringing him bread and onions and rice that he’d buy miles away - no matter that, in his own words, Borsalino’s association with scummy smugglers made him a scummy smuggler too. Borsalino had been less starved for food than for company. 

It certainly hadn’t hurt that Sakazuki was handsome, either. Every time he’d come around, it felt like he was the first man Borsalino had seen in his life. So real, too, with those big rough hands and that skin, mottled with dirt. But Borsalino had never really more than entertained the thought of getting closer, sure that Sakazuki didn't swing that way, unsure that he swung any way at all. 

_I knew I was better off not getting too attached_. It was always that way with idealists, especially the ones who had nothing to lose. Sakazuki had lived in a tunnel with only one possible, grim outcome - he’d loathed himself, overly preoccupied with the idea that the wrong blood ran through his veins.

But now…

Borsalino filled his chest with air. Thought of the training that morning, of what the other man had become.

His back and neck, hard with muscle where bones had been visible through the skin before. And that tattoo, the colour new and vibrant, flames licking right across the beautiful dorsal muscles like gild on a sculpture. There was a tightness on the creases of his young face too, the smallest hints at the repression and emotion crammed into that uniform, in that body. It was painfully obvious that nobody was touching him.

Then there were the hands. His big hands pressing on the ground, the same hands he'd imagined so often gripping at his waist, running up and down his back. No, that was a bad thought - those hands had hurt him too. But the beating was not what he hadn’t quite forgiven, was it.

_Sakazuki, the name almost playful when he mouthed it. He would have mouthed it so gladly in his ear…_

When he awoke a couple of hours later, he found himself incapable of going back to sleep and so horny that it was difficult to think.

After turning around on the mattress, his erection thrusting against the fabric of the meagre covers, he stopped hoping to regain sleep and thought of the rough touch of his last lover instead. He’d been a trainee and roommate at the G-1 — he’d had nice cheekbones, and blushed endearingly when they sucked each other off hurriedly between hours in that don’t-ask-don’t-tell way. Borsalino closed his eyes and ran a hand through his hair, imagined dropping to his knees and feeling a pull forcing him to look up. He had liked running his fingers on the other man’s hips slowly enough that he’d impatiently thrust forward. He could picture the fabric of the black jeans Sakazuki had been wearing earlier as he came to make amends…

…and Sakazuki looking down at him with those insanely intense dark eyes, clicking his tongue at the roof of his mouth and growling, _w_ _hat the hell is taking you so long?_

“Ooh… fuck,” Borsalino stifled a sound, pulling his free hand down to squeeze himself.

In his mind’s eye, he had difficulties looking away from the dark flames and petals on the other man’s torso long enough to undo the button of his jeans. He would reach up and feel Sakazuki’s fingers closing in around his wrist, urging it to press against his groin instead. 

He wanted the grip on his nape forcing him in place, first gentle, then possessive. He wanted to touch his Captain’s firm erection before prying it free, huge and enticing and beautiful, wanted to be watched as he parted his lips and allowed the delicious pressure to ram into his throat, wanted his eyes to swell with delighted tears, soon to be not the only thing running down his face—

He muffled himself as he came hard and fast. Jolted up, his hand and abdomen sticky with the evidence of his thought crime.

Hummed. 

_Well… I just have no cure._

* * *

They had departed shortly before dawn, and Borsalino, having sworn he would only close his eyes for a minute, suspected that the clock had skipped a few hours without regard for his rest. He’d showed up to the parting ships with his uniform crumpled and his hair flattened in all the wrong places after the late night-early morning shower he’d had to take - sighing in relief when he realised he did not stand out in the mass of yawning officers. 

Despite convincing himself that he would spend the foreseeable future pretending Sakazuki did not exist, the Captain had already caught him staring twice, and twice had Borsalino’s eyes darted away.

_He’s judging the hell out of me._

_Oh Saka, if you knew…_

Garp's massive ship creaked and slightly tilted with the waves as they held the briefing in a crowded room. The Vice Admiral was supervising the mission, all smiles and bellowing laughter as he recounted how Sakazuki's squad would break into the fortress they presumed to be the pirates' rendezvous point, and the other squad, under the orders of a scarred guy Borsalino only knew as Doberman, would be watching over the perimeter in pairs.

“Remember, they will put up a fight, and we’re aiming to arrest all of them!” The Vice Admiral exclaimed as he rubbed his knuckles together. "And to spice it up a little… whoever does the best job has dibs on the Paramecias we find, if we find any. Also! Dead guys don't count, you want to get those bastards alive!" 

All officers left that first meeting pumped up for the ambush to come, but the initial enthusiasm quickly settled into a quiet air of anticipation. As the swarm scattered, Borsalino felt the weight of a hand patting his shoulder, and turned around to greet a yawning Kuzan. 

“Hey, the guys are playing cards, are you coming?” He asked. Borsalino responded by snatching the Marine’s cap from his head; the need to cover his stupid hair was impending. “Man… I need that, it’s going to be sunny today.” 

“How am I going to hide my hair like _this_ …?” The older of the two complained. “Where are your sunglasses?”

“Uh, where's your hat?” 

Borsalino side-eyed him. He had a point.

The sway of the ship was pleasant, so was the background noise of chatter and dull steps on deck. As they made their way down the stairs that split the main, elegant corridor in two, Borsalino thought aloud.

“ _Sa-ay,_ don’t you think it’s strange that we get to keep the Paramecias?” He seemed to remember being taught, in basic training, that Devil’s Fruits of any type were to be retrieved, described, and accounted for, going into the system and becoming the Government’s property. Only then would it be decided who was to be rewarded with it.

“Huh… not really…, it’s Garp after all, he can do whatever he wants,” Kuzan waved the thought away. “It’s good motivation, I guess.”

Borsalino narrowed his eyes. Monkey D. Garp certainly had the carefree air of a person who gets away with a lot.

The pair made their way into a room where the atmosphere was thick with presence and smoke. At the centre sat a table designed to imitate the top half of a giant barrel. Around it, several officers held fans of cards in front of their faces around a pile of cigars, cigarettes, shot bottles and what he could educatedly guess were raunchy magazines in the middle. Borsalino stood, hands in his pockets, as Kuzan took an empty seat.

“Arara… playing cheat, huh?”

The officer next to him, Momonga, frowned. “Diez… Stainless is lying. This is _obvious_.”

Borsalino observed as Diez shifted his eyes, brought a hand to his large chin and hummed in thought before adding some more cards to the central pile. 

Momonga uncovered the top and Diez smiled dumbly. A wave of laughter erupted as the first cadet added a bunch of cards to his already generous pile.

“Aw, you’re too honest for this," Borsalino smiled faintly.

Instead of paying any mind to the man's flustered retort, faded photos on a wall caught his eye. People in summer clothes smiled and waved from a tropical landscape; there were some caricatures, too, most notably a frowning Admiral Sengoku and Tsuru sketched on a napkin. It was obvious that the Vice Admiral Garp cared about the cosiness of the common space in his ship. A bit of Borsalino’s wariness faded. 

His eyes darted to the next picture. It had been taken in a city, and it took a second to recognise a young Marine as the Vice Admiral too, clad in cadet’s clothes which barely contained his bulky figure. He was ruffling a young boy’s hair. They had a similar shape of the nose, a similar turn of the eyebrows, but what was almost identical was their open grin.

“What a cute family picture...,” a saddish, monotone voice said from behind him. He expected to see somebody big as he turned around, but it was only the presence of Strawberry’s tall head looming over him. 

Kuzan chuckled softly as Diez let out a dismissive _pffft_ noise in response.

“Oh… I didn’t know that Vice Admiral Garp had a son,” Borsalino mused.

Strawberry hummed. “Maybe it's a nephew? No wife that I can think of.”

“Well, don’t say I said that,” a feminine voice chipped in. The lady officer sat facing away from him so he couldn’t see her features, but she sounded young. “But are you surprised?”

“You shouldn’t say that,” another officer said through the bite on his cigar, grinning hermetically. “You never know who’s listening and won’t like that.”

“Hey, Yamakaji! I didn’t mean it that way. I’m just saying it’s not easy to be a Marine hero and have a family life, huh?”

Diez scoffed. “If Captain Asshole keeps overworking us, then of course not. I haven’t talked to a woman in months.”

"What am I, you idiot?"

“I heard Kuzan has time to date Yama’s sister,” Officer Stainless chimed in deviously. 

“Uh, I just took her out to dinner twice… or, er, wait, was it… was it thrice?” The young man scratched his curls absently, bearing the string of _ooohs_ and whistles that came from the others. “Calm down, guys, nothing happened.”

“I guess there's still gentlemen in Marineford…”

“If you are such pigs," Momonga scolded them, “It’s really not Sakazuki’s fault that you are not dating.”

“Still an asshole,” Diez muttered. 

Borsalino scoffed. The opportunity to milk information out of the conversation was almost glaringly obvious.

“Oh… is he that bad?” He asked nonchalantly, lowering his look to his short fingernails, “I have the feeling that he dislikes me already…” 

“No,” Stainless lowered his ice-cold eyes to throw a significant look at Diez, “Five-year-old Barrels here is just pissed off because his friend Shepherd requested a transfer after Sakazuki beat the crap out of him.”

“Which, to be fair, both were in the wrong,” Strawberry added quietly, swinging on his feet and waving a curl of smoke away from his face. “There’s stuff you shouldn't say even if you think it…” 

“If you are worried, just ask him about the mission,” the lady added.

“Yes,” Kuzan said, “Pretend you want to work hard...”

“ ** _I heard that!_ ** No slackers on my ship!” It was the unmistakable cackle of Vice Admiral Garp, whose emergence into the room had the squad shooting up like resorts, saluting, and falling into silence when they saw the ever-loyal Captain Sakazuki follow his master into the scene. 

Borsalino could tell it was assumed from the fine line of Sakazuki’s lips that the culprit of the joke was mentally noted. Laughter needed to be exterminated, offhand comments controlled. Even the smoke seemed to hold its dance still in the air.

_Which circle of dishonour Hell are we flirting with here?_

“Why,” Sakazuki’s tone was low, dry, “Are you lot here betting like a bunch of prisoners?”

But a blink later and to the young Captain’s dismay, Garp had disappeared from his side and already invited himself to the next round, a palm hitting on his own leg with full force.

“Come, come, one round won’t hurt! Sit down, Sakazuki!” 

Borsalino side-glanced at Momonga, who motioned with an open palm to the empty seat near him under Diez’s completely still, round eyes.

“There’s space here, sir.” 

Sakazuki’s nose scrunched up as though the invitation were some kind of repulsive odour. His eyes stopped on Borsalino's, and quietly narrowed; and just then, he noticed that, as a matter of fact, his own mouth was half open, about to either start emitting sounds or look…, well, less than dignified.

“Aah… I…, I actually may have to steal you for a _se-econd_ , Captain,” Borsalino improvised, conceding the other man's rank without a hint of irony - or at least, that was the intention. He pulled up a hand to scratch the back of his neck. "I have a question that should be kind of obvious, _but_ …"

Sakazuki dragged his eyes over him, head to toe, his brow slightly tense with puzzlement. For a second, Borsalino feared he would say no, but the crux of superficial social interaction was a riddle Sakazuki did not care to solve. 

“Fine.”

Kuzan was giving him a thumbs-up as he crossed the barrier of cigar smoke to the corridor.

Borsalino pulled his sunglasses down, tinting the world amber in defense against the relentless sunlight coming from upstairs. He saw a coffee pot sitting on a table in the corridor and congratulated himself on finding something for his hands to do. He poured and handed a full cup to Sakazuki. The man scowled, looking at it as though it might be poisoned, but then sipped grudgingly.

“You don’t have to do that,” he growled, averting Borsalino’s look. “They don't like me. I’ll survive.”

“Mmmm… some do like you,” Borsalino argued. The coffee was hot and watery on his tongue, and he recoiled at the taste. "The coffee you used to bring me was much better, you know…”

Sakazuki frowned at him warily.

“You’re not getting any special treatment.”

"I have noticed," Borsalino quipped. It was true — he and Kuzan had been assigned a boring surveillance task along the second squad. He cleared his throat and kept his voice as eloquent and chipper as he could. “I don’t want to be at war with you. I won’t be of much help at the back of the mission, right…?”

“You were picked at random,” Sakazuki said. “Not by me. I only decided on Kuzan. We can't rely on one Devil's Fruit user to get results."

Back on deck, both men cast long shadows, and Sakazuki's moved as he unfolded an arm thoughtfully, resting his free hand on the handle of the sword at his belt. “Is that why you are complaining? Less arrests means no Devil's Fruits?”

Borsalino had forgotten about that, and was about to say as much, but Sakazuki interrupted the thought.

“I know it's…” He scowled at the waves and pulled his cap lower, obscuring his eyes. “Vice Admiral Garp just wants an equal chance for everyone.”

 _Vice Admiral Garp bends the rules,_ Borsalino corrected mentally. _Act first, ask later, turn the Marine hierarchy heads-up._

 _They are so different._ _Both with a reputation and both hot-headed and tough, but… that’s it. Those are the similarities. Where do they connect?_

“Aah... aren’t there procedures in place for that kind of thing…?”

“Yes,” Sakazuki said curtly. “For a reason.”

“I can’t imagine that you like that…”

Sakazuki’s jaw tightened a little. Borsalino threw the paper cup overboard and bent over the railing. He felt at his pocket, produced a rolled cigarette from his tobacco pouch, and cupped his cheek on a long hand to glance at the other man, to catch a glimpse of the petals and flames peeking from under his jacket. He exhaled the smoke slowly from his nostrils, enjoying the burned aroma. 

"It doesn't matter,” Sakazuki pulled his attention to the realm of words again. His harsh tone bounced Borsalino’s attempt at a closer conversation like a ball against a brick wall. “There is no shortcut. You want something, earn it. Train more. Work harder."

“I don’t want any fruits,” Borsalino protested, a drop more defensive than he’d intended. “I don't expect to get anything… Don't you always think the worst of me…?”

“What?” Sakazuki barked. “I don't mean that. I mean if you want something. A _goal_. Know what that is?”

“Of course _not_ ,” Borsalino peeled the cigarette from his lips and flared his nostrils, the words a hair trigger for him. “It's not like I was ever motivated for _any-thing…_ certainly not for helping _you_ …”

Sakazuki tilted his chin up. “Fine. Go on doing what you do best, but then don't come complaining when you're shoved in the back. And quit throwing your goddamn smoke on my face.”

To punctuate, he pressed Borsalino’s cigarette between his fingers and threw it on deck in one swift motion, silently, almost pragmatically, before stomping his shoe on it. 

Borsalino looked at the dead cigarette, then raised his eyes slowly.

“Good…” he smiled, rehearsed and genial, keeping the poison from his words. “I need to quit anyway.”

The Captain didn't grace him with another answer. As he turned on his heels, the cloak clung to his shoulders, broadening his once scrawny frame into something regal.

Borsalino wanted to drag that coat through the mud. Wanted to smear Sakazuki with his humanity, to prove that the perfect soldier he’d crafted was nothing.

But, partly, he found himself coveting Sakazuki's lips harder, wanting to breathe some of that fire in, to steal it and keep it for himself. 

He realised his heart was thumping.

The ship creaked around him, the copper-red shores of their destination rapidly growing in the horizon.

* * *

_This is unfair._

_He thinks I'm really lazy._

_Well… Maybe he's right…_

_No he's not! But how should I prove him wrong if he gives me nothing to do besides staring at this stupid river…_ he looked at the precipice where he’d been posted, which waned off into a discreet beach on one side and opened into the rear of the abandoned fortress on the other _… and at Kuzan._

His companion was laying with his back against one of the copper-red rocks of the hill, his Marines cap pulled over his eyes. He had his rifle secured across his chest, the barrel pressed against the ground, his hands resting over its handle but not completely relaxed.

Borsalino flattened his hair with a hand for the thousandth time that day. He dangled his own gun against his shoulder and frowned at the distant sea without really seeing it.

 _Fucking Sakazuki. Say what you will, but I never judged you._ Even on his insane crusade against that pirate he was obsessed with, as innocent slaves and servants had been caught in the mess, Borsalino hadn’t approved… but he had understood. 

In tune with his mood, an angry, sudden gust of wind had stormy clouds began to gather above their heads. Borsalino looked up just in time to get his face soaked wet in the first few seconds of rain. He raised his sunglasses to his forehead and found himself so aggravated, so utterly undignified, that he could only laugh.

“This is our luck…” He told Kuzan, his forearms full of goosebumps all over. The younger man had flicked his cap up at the suddenly grey sky in equal disbelief. 

“Ararara… They could've said something at the briefing,” he commented, lightly scratching the side of his cheekbone. 

“They could…” Borsalino found himself wondering if the three big thinking brains of their operation had forgotten about accounting for the weather. “It doesn't matter, does it...?” 

After all, something like that would only be relevant in their position if somebody were trying to discreetly… 

_Light bulb._

He hopped across to the other edge of the red precipice, and, sure enough, saw how the river tide grew fast - thick enough to propel a black-sailed boat which looked like a toy in the distance, heading straight to the inlet opening into the wide sea.

_Rain powder. I would bet on it._

_They are smart…, but not as smart as they think…_

“Mmm… how very strange,” Borsalino looked over at Kuzan, whose vaguely tipsy-looking eyes had sobered up in the rain. He poked his head next to Borsalino, already holding his portable communicator, which took into Sakazuki’s scowling features.

“What.”

“At our position, there’s a, uh, there’s a… What are we looking at?”

Borsalino gave a long shrug. “It's a small ship trying to get away, and it’s not one of ours… That’s for sure…”

The boat navigated the silver trail leading to the inlet steadily. At that speed they would reach the sea in minutes.

The den-den resembling Sakazuki grunted. “Fine. I’m sending you some men. Something’s not right here.”

As the snail fell into lethargy again, Kuzan and Borsalino exchanged looks. The latter grinned.

“ _We-ell_ , I suppose I’ll be going,” he said chipperly. “You want to stay here and cover me…”

Kuzan nodded curtly. Without knowing how much manpower the pirates had, but knowing there couldn’t be many, it was a good idea to reserve his power in the rear. 

One split second later, Borsalino had taken swing with his long legs to slide down the red rocky slope. The guns and knives were a reassuring weight at his back and at his belt, but there was another feeling pulling at his lips to grin, the fiery agitation that preceded a fight. It made him feel as light as a dancer. He invested some of his energy in scanning what he could feel at the boat; there were a few presences, most of them weak... and something else, something that he could not place. 

_Easy…_

When he jumped across the rest of the slope and his trainers landed on the ground, the rain had waned. So he decided to reach out to his back pocket and place another readily rolled cigarette behind his ear. Patted the front pockets of his shirt. No lighter.

 _But the boat is not that far… Maybe they have a light…_

But, in plain view of Borsalino, a shape swiftly outstretched from the boat and quickly outgrew it - it looked like the shadow that two growing arms, no, two _wings_ would cast on the ground. It jittered as if pieces of small feathers had been stitched together and imprinted onto the ground, like the shadows of many small creatures merging and spilling into each other.

 _A Devil's Fruit user!_ His pace pressed into a jog. _It has to be one._

He abruptly realised his feet were slipping on a glittering layer of ice, which took over as he hopped and swung aside, plummeting into the river and layering unto itself until it encircled the boat and latched unto it, the impact obstructing its advance as if it had crashed into rocks. A couple of chests were sent flying off, spilling their sparkling contents on the ground.

Several movements requiring his attention simultaneously, Borsalino raised up his rifle to zoom in and fine-tuned his hearing—

“Pia! Wait, where is the fruit? Master Moria will be pissed—”

He watched intently as the wing shadows vanished into thin air, looking as though they suddenly bore immense weight; then a man jumped ship, who promptly started desperately struggling to cram the gold and jewels back where they had come from.

“He-ey. You!” Borsalino kept targeting the scrawny man, who raised his hands at the instant. His blue eyes were big and defiant through the visor. 

_Marines_ , he mouthed.

Then Borsalino shot at the boat once, pulverizing its bow, and a wayward storm of attacks followed.

* * *

“So, what happened then?” 

An exasperated chief lieutenant pushed up his reading glasses to pinch the bridge of his nose. Although the dark circles under his eyes and slight wince made him look desperate to leave that long day behind him, he was paying utmost attention to the den-den snail reproducing a recorded conversation. 

Across him, behind an impersonal working desk, Borsalino’s eyes shifted between his own fingers and the den-den. Its features were now shaping into Kuzan’s.

“Well uh… I thought I'd wait for you guys and give Borsalino a hand if he needed it… he was doing good on his own, under attack but, arara, I don't think they really knew what they were doing…” 

The bespectacled man scrutinised Borsalino, who flashed him a genial grin which went unresponded. 

“Here is where it gets weird,” Kuzan’s recorded voice went on, “there was this lady, one of the pirates, or… the head I suppose… a pretty young lady, she wore some fishnets, some leather… Very um, very…” He trailed off, and Borsalino snorted. “ _Anyway_ … I first saw this lady as she flew away with… well I guess you could say riding - no, wait… don’t put that on the report… flying on... something that looked like an, um, animal, maybe a bat? A really big one? Or like, the outline of one.”

In the actual situation, he’d only half-seen what Kuzan was describing under an array of nervous attacks, biting down on the taste of red sand and powder in his mouth. But now, in the safety of Garp's ship, laughter was trembling and threatening to erupt from Borsalino’s throat. He was tempted to correct and expand on Kuzan’s ill-fated description of the piratess’ physical attributes just to see if the officer’s frown could deepen more, but he thought shaking his head solemnly was a better means to his preferred end - namely, cutting this interview short.

“Anyway, Borsalino was doing fine on his own, he even had time to tease the pirates, I don’t think they even got too close to him-”

The other officer made a gesture and the den-den went mute. He frowned. 

“Teasing?” 

“Ah, oh, hmm… _maybe_ ,” Borsalino scratched with one long finger at the sideburn peeking from under his hat. “I was out-numbered… I needed to get them out somehow, you know…? I only used one of them to make the rest nervous… Maybe I overdid it…”

In fact, _teasing_ was a bit of an overstatement - the pirates had grown desperate seeing he had their friend under grip. They’d hesitated to shoot - all attempting to attack one by one, all taken down. True, after the boy had called the last pirate standing _sister_ , he'd let him scream some more…, but she’d had too much sense to come back, had taken flight with her little shadow spell and left the gold and her alleged family behind.

Admittedly, the little boy had had courage. _But you can't survive on that alone…_

The chief lieutenant frowned with distaste. He had a goatee so neatly trimmed it could have been drawn on. He would have been cute if he hadn't the kind of do-gooder air about him that made Borsalino want to yawn permanently.

His fingers tapped on the table. 

“I don't appreciate-” But the door flinging open interrupted him, giving way to Sakazuki's massive form. 

“Vice Admiral Garp is on his way,” he said. His eyes were hidden under his cap, his jacket wide open, and Borsalino caught himself needing to peel his look away from the tattoo again and cursing himself internally. “One pirate missing, the rest have been arrested. The whole crew is completely fucked,” he slammed a stack of papers on the desk. “Already tied down when we arrived there. They don’t remember a thing about the pirates you took down, nor what they were doing at the island.”

Borsalino raised his eyebrows, his mouth frozen in an o. 

“Sir, I take issue with the way your officers handled the situation,” The lieutenant spat. “I don’t think the use of a human shield was necessary.”

“Was it?” Sakazuki interrupted, addressing Borsalino. He found himself shocked by Sakazuki’s direct, coldly professional speech despite their last exchange. 

“Well…” Borsalino tilted his head and smiled slightly. "Should I have let them escape instead…?" 

“With all due respects, Captain Sakazuki, we still need information out of the captured pirates. Maybe they'd consider collaborating if you had treated them better.” 

“Should we give them a blanket and a cup of tea?” Sakazuki scowled. “They were traitors, they stole from one crew to join another. End of story. Don't be ridiculous.”

The interrogating officer suddenly looked as though he’d smelled shit. “You suggest this is fine by your standards?”

“I suggest you get the hell out of here. I’ll discipline my own men.”

The man narrowed his eyes and lowered them before walking out. 

A corner of Sakazuki’s grimace fell further. 

"Idiot," he muttered. He turned his attention to Borsalino without meeting his eye, and pointed to the first two sheets in the stack he had brought with himself. "Does this ring any bells?”

Borsalino’s eyes narrowed. His absent smile did not disappear.

Captain Gecko Moria. Long-faced, horned, grinning like a manic Cheshire Cat, his features a gaunt demonic mask. And Pia the Magpie, one of his combatants, was shown in a profile that highlighted her pointy nose; wielding a pair of scissors, her eyes hidden by thick aviator goggles. 

“Hmm, _ye-es,_ the boy mentioned a Moria… and although I am clearly not as well-read as my _Captain_ ,” Borsalino said giddily and ignored the glare from under the higher-ranking Marine's cap, “...this looks like a Devil's Fruit user. And this lady here…? She made it away on an animal made of shadows… I bet she is one too…”

“You think?” Sakazuki squinted at him. Before he could keep talking, which notably ruined his appeal, the door creaked and Garp stomped into the room, punching one fist into his other, open palm. Sakazuki bolted into an upright position. “I’m sorry, sir! We were late… We let one escape.”

But Garp looked as though his double-breasted suit was going to tear at the seams in sheer pride. Borsalino had to admit that he was amazing, and a bit threatening one-on-one. 

“Well done! I like that you're demanding of yourself, Sakazuki! I’ve done something right,” he dropped a beastly hand on Sakazuki’s shoulder pad. The familiar gesture drew Borsalino’s attention, and he lowered his eyes to the bounty posters, watching quietly and just in glances. “I think you arrived just in time! You would’ve gotten the same good results with other timing, I’m sure! _Bwahahahah!_ "

“As it stands," Sakazuki hesitated,"...I did nothing.” 

“Did nothing? Stop that. You identified everyone without even giving yourself the credit!” Garp swatted at the Captain’s back and narrowed his eyes fondly, the scar dashing through his cheek framed with wrinkles from grinning. “Doesn't he have a good brain between his ears?”

Borsalino perked up. "Oh, _ye-es_ he _does_ ," he crooned. 

“I like you!” Garp crossed his arms and rubbed at his goatee. “Ah, and here you are. The one who made the most arrests today.”

Borsalino blinked blankly, his smile spreading even further. 

“Oooh, I suppose I am…”

“And you know what that means,” Garp produced a small chest from the fold of his arm, which looked even smaller compared to his grandiose form. The box clacked onto the table. “Look into the mystery box and tell me if you want it. I'll be sending your report directly to Sengoku, Sakazuki.”

Borsalino faced the chest, black oak wood carved with beautiful golden floral patterns, and pressed lightly on it with his hands, staring at it as intently as he would stare into a lover’s eyes.

A corner of his mouth twisted up.

“I suppose the pirates wanted to give this to Moria as a sign of loyalty,” He mused. After all, what was it but a declaration, to give someone the gift of bending the laws of nature itself? “Paramecias in the right hands can be deadly, _you know_ …?” 

He had absolutely no intention of eating one - he only wanted every last drop of Sakazuki's reaction as he pretended to think about it. He tapped his fingers on the surface of the table and uttered some interested oohs and mmms, all the while very conscious of the Captain’s tense presence in the corner of his vision.

“Sir,” Sakazuki objected - predictably. "With all respects… I don't think it's fair to apply the…" he gritted his teeth, " _dibs rule…_ to this situation." 

“Aw… my Captain is jealous,” Borsalino said melodiously, resting his chin on his hands again. Sakazuki's protests were music to his ears. “Mmm… let's see…”

Then he shyly pushed the lid up with a bit of his lower lip that was almost obscene, and his brow creased.

_Oh my…_

It was always strange to see a Devil's Fruit as real as life itself. From the Encyclopedia and the way they were described in accounts ancient and new, you'd think they all had a special glow or shape. But that one was beautiful, simple: a round, bulby spiral emerging from two curling leaves.

He tilted his head. Ran a finger down the smooth, gnarled pulp. It looked like it was melting.

Then two images he'd seen in his past connected in his brain and sparked recognition. A story told to him and then read in a book. A royal guard dying for his cause on a battlefield split by cracks on the Earth’s surface and liquid fire…

 _I know you._

He pushed the gilded chest back in his superiors' direction.

“Hmmm… This is very nice of _yo-ou_ , Master Garp, but I don’t want it…” he waved the thought away nonchalantly. “A petty officer like me, with a Logia like this…? _No_ , that should belong to somebody with more responsibility…” 

His slouch giving him an air of uninterest, Borsalino slid away from the table, the chair grating on the wooden floor. 

“Hey," At Garp's voice, he stopped on his tracks. "How do you know it's a Logia?”

"Mmm… I must've read it somewhere. The encyclopedia at the library…?” He brought a hand to his chin, arched an eyebrow. “I could be wrong, many Devil's Fruits are similar..., I guess we will not know until somebody eats it…"

When he glanced over at Garp, it was apparent that the wheels in his knucklehead were turning, and the next sentence felt like he'd just shot an arrow into the room and hit a perfect bullseye. 

“Do you want it, Sakazuki?” 

For, in fact, the young Captain had also been observing the fruit. Its hue danced red in his cool, resolute grey eyes — and behind them, maybe greed, maybe hunger. Seeing him give in and close his teeth around that fruit would be the real gift. A shiver crossed Borsalino's gut.

 _This is it. We will say it's a peace offering,_ he decided. As subtle as a sledgehammer to Sakazuki's handsome façade. 

But then, to the surprise of all present, he shook his head. 

“No,” his eyes found Borsalino's for the first time in the exchange, and he squinted with a distrustful arch of the eyebrows. “We’re done. Is there anything else?” 

“No, _sir_ …” A bit of Borsalino's excitement had sunk, but he didn't let it spill into his chipper tone. He turned a shoulder to Sakazuki's restless sigh and saw himself out. 

… But the moment he turned around the next corridor, he leant his back against the creaking wood of the ship and attuned his overly sensitive hearing to the two men he'd left behind, doubting Garp would mind his eavesdropping even if he noticed. 

“What do you mean, _for someone of my rank_?!” Came the Vice Admiral’s heated words. “Listen, you use haki, you are already headed for my rank at least. I know it, and Sengoku knows it! If you really don’t want a Devil’s Fruit, it’s another story — I like swimming too. But if rank is the reason, young man… it’s a bad reason.” Then he chomped into some creaking food thoughtfully. “Thinking makes me hungry.”

“...Vice Admiral. It is my duty to become stronger,” came Sakazuki’s growl, a subtle hesitation trembling at the bottom. “But I can’t take a Logia like this. It’s not my decision,” he paused. “And it’s not yours.” 

Borsalino raised his eyebrows. 

Then came the ear-drilling roar of laughter, along with the sound of Garp's palm hitting against his own leg. 

“ _Bwahahahah_! You should see your face right now. Well then, I suppose we will have to ask the Government, won’t we? Tsuru will love this.”

Borsalino swung on his feet and stretched his arms.

And then, amidst the sounds of wood dropping and hinges closing, the grin still audible in his voice, he listened to Garp add,

“Don’t worry — usually I would say this is the last you’ve seen of the fruit… But the Government loves you! Besides, your stubborn head will take this and do only good with it. I’m positive, son. I’ve never been so sure of something in my entire life!”


End file.
